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Hi Flutherites,
Long time no blog. It may have sounded quiet around here, but we’ve been busy working on lots of things under the hood and today we’d like to announce a neat new feature that’s been requested by many of you: profile answers! Now when you click on user profiles, you can see not just their questions, but also their answers. This allows you to get a much better snapshot of your fellow Fluther users, and also track what your favorite Flutherites are answering.
A few of you mentioned some possible privacy concerns regarding this feature, and we’ve done our best to address that by making the list of answers only available to registered members (which also prevents Google from indexing the page).
We hope you enjoy this new feature, and we welcome your comments.
Sorry, I’m afraid I’m not at all happy about this. I thought the weight of opinion had gone against it. It’s too much exposure and a real deterrent to candid sharing of personal experience, which constitutes some of the best and most helpful answers we have. To me it is a big enough change to upset the balance and make me think about pulling way back.
I’m not crazy about this idea, but it doesn’t bother me too terribly much. Since many people are concerned about it, could you make participation voluntary? Like levels of privacy for your profile?
I don’t like this feature at all. I would rather have the option of having a larger Fluther. I’ve had to drop “seasoned” jellies to add new ones.
I really don’t understand the privacy concern; our answers are visible elsewhere throughout the questions, and I don’t see the issue with centralizing them.
If your username is anonymous, why does it matter? Could someone explain that to me? Would a list of questions you’ve participated in be better, and how?
<3
I’m ambivalent about this feature. While I understand that one can find many of a user’s comments via nifty google filters, this is a much easier mechanism towards accessing all of one person’s site contributions. I would feel more comfortable if I were given the ability to set the privacy level for this, to disallow access to comment history if the member is less than a month old perhaps, or has to be in my Fluther, etc. And since the features are very similar, I would greatly appreciate the ability to batch download all of my comments apart from having to copy and paste them via this new access tool.
richardhenry, the issue is that now someone could go through one’s comments and paint a picture of them much more easily than if they had to hunt down all the info through google. For instance, someone could go through my history and find the town I live in, my general field of employment, some details about my hobbies and interests, where I went to school, and they could theoretically use that to locate me in real life. I strive for anonymity (and haven’t given any information that would put this in jeopardy), but there are many who do not strive as much.
Like many others, I don’t care for this feature either. I wish either participation was voluntary OR (and I prefer this idea) that only people that you have in YOUR fluther can see your answers. Would that be too difficult to design?
It sounds good to me. I doubt I will use it much, but I am in favor of grouping answers by subject.
I really like the idea of only allowing people in your fluther to view this info. For some of us (myself included) our Fluther user name is the one we use exclusively online. Anyone who knows me at all would know who augustlan is in ‘real life’.
Can we turn it off?
When all comments are there like a book to read anyone who happens to be surfing who thinks they know a flutherite in real life will be able to put the pieces together easily.
By looking quickly over one profile I have just learned this about an unnamed flutherite:
She grew up in Los Angeles and still resides Los Angeles.
She has earned a BA and a MA
She is 35 years old
She drives a Mini-cooper
She has 5 cats named Flower, mushroom, blackberry, Jelly bean and Cali.
She and her spouse rent an apartment
She is Chicano
She goes to an acupuncturist
She gets sick to her stomach when under stress
She wears Jack Purcells
She wears glasses and her vision is blurry without them
Sometimes she wishes her spouse would go away
She was a heavy smoker
She has been in prison
She fears the death of her spouse.
She was emotionally and physically beaten as a child
She attended a school for gifted children
She took the RTD when she was 9 years old alone.
Her spouse does not understand her diet needs
She does not have children and does not care for kids at all.
Her spouse is a teacher
She has a 38 year old girl cousin with three kids
She was called in for jury duty 2 weeks ago and was dismissed.
She does not have a home phone and uses a cell for all calls.
**I only went back TWO WEEKS into comments.**
I could go on… but my point is that when the comments are all lined up it paints a picture of the person posting that would not be obvious if the viewer had to look around for comments.
Again I ask if this feature can be removed or optional? Is the curiosity of a few worth violating the privacy of the majority?
Exactly, Dog. Great example–thanks! This is the point, and not Google searchability or stalking. Sure, regulars may remember or be able to find all this, but it would take plenty of digging. Laying it all out there for someone who might recognize you by your cats’ names and be surprised to learn of your prison record is another matter entirely. This feels almost like a betrayal of trust, certainly a betrayal of confidence. Yes, we made our own postings, but not with the expectation that they would be served up as a profile.
I would go for a compromise that restricted visibility just to those who are in our own fluther.
I have to echo all the concerns and suggestions listed above. It will make me far more reluctant to be specific in answers when they can be pieced together so easily. I agree that you could search out the same information before, but it would have been time consuming and cumbersome. Given the influx of trolls and belligerent posters lately; it makes me wary.
I am honestly really happy about this feature, but do understand people’s concerns. I have quite a few users that I’d love to read more from but I don’t come on often enough when I am at school to follow everything closely.
Opting out sounds like a good possibility, or perhaps a “Don’t archive this answer” checkbox…
I think this is a good idea if only those in your fluther can read your answers or have a opt out box. As I am not an expert I want to know how this will affect who will be able to see answers? For example can someone google a question and my answer appear?
Ok, thanks for the responses everyone. You’ve brought up some excellent points–and we really appreciate all your feedback.
It’s important to remember that almost everything on the site is public (except for private comments), and in the future we may have other features that make certain things feel more public (like featured users, for example). But we also don’t want to cross the line of limiting how open people want to be when they give an answer.
I think the compromise position of having your answers viewable only by people you’ve added to your fluther makes sense, and strikes a nice balance of control, functionality, and privacy.
So, in light of this discussion, we’ve decided to pull this feature right now and re-release it with the modified rules. Hopefully that will work for everyone.
Thanks,
Ben
I lurve this solution! Kudos to the Fluthergods!
Thanks for taking our concerns into consideration. Fluther, as always, rocks!
Awesome! Great work!
Thank you, thank you! I truly appreciate your receptivity and responsiveness. Those are among the things that make the character of this site so exceptional. That compromise works for me.
For people who don’t care to make any restriction, perhaps an “all” versus “fluther only” option would work.
So will the revised feature allow our responses to be viewed only by people we add to our own fluther or also by those who add us or do we all have to be on each other’s fluther in order to track who’s found the good posts?
You are so responsive. What a great group!
I think the ability to erase a previous answer might help allay some fears for some individuals. Is that possible or is it “Once cast, forever last”?
To further protect the privacy of the poster @Dog mentioned above on May 27th, 2009, 10:38 pm. I’ll save you some time. It’s me. (I lied about being a non-smoker.)
Am I the only person that didn’t mind at all? And thought it was kind of neat as it was?
It would also be nice to still be able to see our own answers . . .
Ok, so the feature is coming back, right? I’ve really enjoyed having it!!!
This response from our Fluther leaders again demonstrates why this very special site continues to improve and expand! Thanks, guys!!
wtf? where did it go and why is this such a big deal?
Oh! I think that is a great solution. It won’t stop real trouble-makers, but then nothing would.